Ferdinando Carulli

Serenade op. 96

Ferdinando Carulli’s was originally composed for two guitars and exemplifies the stylistic clarity and elegance of early nineteenth-century guitar music. My first time listening to this work was through the recording by John Williams and Julian Bream when I was a kid, which left a long lasting desire to perform this piece. As I mainly play solo concerts, I decided to arrange this work for solo guitar and make it part of my concert repertoire.

In my concert edition, I kept the original dynamics of Carulli, while registers and voicings have been adjusted to suit the technical and expressive possibilities of a single instrument. Certain notes have been added or omitted with careful attention to harmonic integrity and idiomatic writing. This arrangement reflects both an effort to remain faithful to Carulli’s musical language and a wish to incorporate the work into my solo concert repertoire.